System and method for evaluating domains to send emails while maintaining sender reputation

ABSTRACT

Systems, device and techniques are disclosed for evaluating domains to send emails while maintaining sender reputation. Registration records of a domain are retrieved. The registration records include a mail server record and one or more records linking the domain to another domain or to an IP address. The mail server record is verified to be associated with a domain that is not on a black list. A webpage is retrieved from a website associated with the one or more records linking the domain to another domain or to an IP address. The webpage is compared to webpages for websites that are on white lists. An electronic communications sending strategy is determined based on verifying that the mail server record is associated with a domain that is not on a blacklist and comparing of the webpage to webpages for websites that are on one or more white lists.

PRIORITY

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.61/878,747, filed Sep. 17, 2013, the disclosure of which is incorporatedby reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Email Service Providers (ESPs) may provide email building and sendingservices to their clients. Clients may request the creation andexecution of marketing campaigns that require the sending of emails to alarge number of users. Some of the users may have never received anemail from the ESP. The ESP may request that its clients receive opt-inconsent from customers before sending email to the customers, but theESP may not be able verify that opt-in consent was received or thatemail addresses provided by a client are correct.

An ESP may send emails for a wide range of clients, from the same orsimilarly situated network infrastructure. A poor sender reputation mayhave a negative impact on an ESP's business. For example, if an ESPsends one or more emails to a Spam trap, an incorrect recipient, or arecipient who has not consented to receiving emails from the ESP or itsclients, the ESP may experience negative business repercussions due to,for example, a poor sender rating or being placed on one or morecommonly used block lists.

Building and sending emails to a vast set of email recipients may be acomplex computational task. An ESP that builds and sends emails destinedfor a domain that cannot properly receive emails, or to email recipientswho did not consent to receiving emails may waste computationalresources that could be used for more appropriate email building andsending tasks.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a furtherunderstanding of the disclosed subject matter, are incorporated in andconstitute a part of this specification. The drawings also illustrateimplementations of the disclosed subject matter and together with thedetailed description serve to explain the principles of implementationsof the disclosed subject matter. No attempt is made to show structuraldetails in more detail than may be necessary for a fundamentalunderstanding of the disclosed subject matter and various ways in whichit may be practiced.

FIG. 1 shows an example process for obtaining information on andverifying a domain, according to an implementation of the disclosedsubject matter.

FIG. 2 shows an example system for evaluating domains according to animplementation of the disclosed subject matter.

FIG. 3 shows a computer according to an implementation of the disclosedsubject matter.

FIG. 4 shows a network configuration according to an implementation ofthe disclosed subject matter.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Techniques disclosed herein enable an ESP or any email sender to performverification and evaluation techniques to determine the likelihood ofsuccess of sending emails within an email campaign to recipients basedon each recipient's domain. As used herein, a domain refers generally toan identification string that may define a realm of administrativeownership within the Internet or other computer network. A domain mayrefer to a fully-qualified domain name or a portion of a domain name, orto another identifier that may or may not be associated with a domainname. The techniques include an ESP system that seeks to verify domainnames from email addresses to be emailed on behalf of a client by an ESPand send email using the ESP's primary emailing infrastructure only tothose domains that can be verified. The techniques disclosed hereinenhance email sending by allowing an ESP to avoid sending emails toemail addresses that include domains which may be risky, malicious,malformed, or improperly configured to receive email. This may preventthe ESP from experiencing an email sender ratings downgrade or beingadded to spam lists, block lists, or black lists.

The techniques disclosed herein enable verifying the domains of emailaddresses to which a client has requested an ESP send an email, allowingthe ESP to avoid email sender ratings downgrades and black listingbetter than traditional techniques. Verifying email address domains mayenable an ESP to use less computational resources building emails to besent out and less bandwidth when sending out emails as the ESP may notneed to send emails to domains that cannot be properly verified. As aspecific example, a client may provide an ESP with a list of fourthousand email addresses to which the client wishes for the ESP to sendan email. Using the techniques disclosed herein, the list of fourthousand email addresses may be reduced to three thousand five hundredemail address based on verification of the domains associated with theemail addresses. The number of emails sent out by the ESP may be reducedand the ESP may avoid sending emails to domains which may be risky,malicious, malformed, or improperly configured to receive email,preventing the ESP from experiencing an email sender ratings downgradedor being placed on a block list. The reduction may result in processingand caching saving. The reduction in number of email addresses may allowfaster processing times, faster communication distribution, reduction inmemory and/or cache, reduction in bandwidth usage, or the like.

According to implementations of the disclosed subject matter, as shownin FIG. 1, emails may be distributed to email addresses based onverification of domains associated with the email addresses, as shown bythe flowchart 100. As shown at step 101, a domain to which an email isto be sent may be identified. At step 102, the domain may be queriedagainst white lists and black lists. At step 103, registration recordsmay be obtained and verified. At step 104 a mail server record for thedomain may be queried against white lists and black lists. At step 105,a webpage associated with a domain may be retrieved. At step 106, thewebpage associated with a domain may be compared against a white list ofdomains and associated webpages. At step 107, potential misspellings fora domain may be identified using a white list of known domains. At step108, a strategy for sending an email may be determined. At 109, an emailmay be sent. At 110, a change in the behavior of the recipient of anemail may be observed.

According to implementations of the disclosed subject matter, at step101 in FIG. 1, a domain to which an email is to be sent may beidentified. An entity, for example, a client of an ESP, may request thatan ESP send an email to a number of recipients with email addressesassociated with a multitude of domains. The ESP may use the sameinfrastructure to send emails to many different domains on behalf of anumber of different clients. The ESP may want to avoid sending email toan email address that may be a spam trap, may be incorrect due to, forexample, a typographical error, or may otherwise cause the domain namesor Internet Protocol addresses associated with infrastructure, such asservers used by the ESP, to have their email sender rating lowered or beadded to a block list that may cause future emails sent by the ESP toblocked. The ESP may have never sent an email to an email addressprovided by the client, or may not have sent an email to the emailaddress in a long time. The ESP may wish to verify the authenticity ofthe domain associated with the email address, or gather more informationabout the domain before sending an email to an email address associatedwith the domain.

The ESP may identify which domains to verify or gather more informationabout in step 101 based on previously known statistical informationstored by the ESP about sending emails. The ESP may retain, for example,in a database, information associated with the success or failure ofemails sent out to various email addresses by the ESP on behalf ofclients. The ESP may retain error messages and error codes received bythe ESP after sending out emails, click and open rates by the recipientsof emails, the number of emails sent to different domains, and otherassociated information. The ESP may evaluate and aggregate storedinformation for a domain to determine whether a domain should beverified or whether the ESP should obtain more information for thedomain.

A client may request that an ESP send an email to a recipient listprovided by that client that includes four thousand email addresses. Thefour thousand email addresses may be determined to be associated withsix hundred domains. The ESP may evaluate and aggregate storedinformation for each of the six hundred domains, and may determine thatthe ESP has successfully sent email to five hundred and ninety out ofthe six hundred domains in the past. The stored information may allowthe ESP to verify the five hundred and ninety domains. The ESP mayselect the remaining ten domains to obtain further information on, asdescribed in steps 103, 104, 105, 106, and 107, before verifying, as theESP may have sent only a few or no emails to email addresses associatedwith the domains.

According to implementations of the disclosed subject matter, a domainmay be queried against white lists and black lists at step 102. The ESPmay review commonly known, or internally maintained, informationsources, including black lists which may include negative associationsfor a domain such as spam lists, spam trap lists, black lists, blocklists, and Domain Name System Block Lists, and sources that may includepositive associations, such as white lists. The ESP may determine, forexample, whether one of the ten unverified domains is listed on one ormore of the information sources. The ESP may store information from theinformation sources in a database to evaluate a domain to determinewhether to send an email to an address from the domain. For example, theESP may be less likely to send an email to an email address associatedwith a domain that is listed on a spam trap list or a black list, andmore likely to send an email to an email address associated with adomain that is listed on a white list.

According to implementations of the disclosed subject matter, at step103 registration records may be obtained and verified. Registrationrecords, such as resource records from DNS, may be obtained for adomain, such as one of the ten unverified domains. The ESP may perform aWHOIS request for the domain to determine the domain's registrar. Thedomain's registrar may provide Name Server (NS) records associated theappropriate name servers to query for the domain. A transport requestmay be made against the appropriate name servers to obtain the full zonefile for the domain. If the transport request is denied, otherregistration records, such as A, MX, SOA, TXT, and canonical name(CNAME) records, may be through standard lookup requests. For A andCNAME records, lookup requests for commonly used names may be used, suchas, for example, ‘mail’, ‘www’, ‘smtp’, and ‘@’.

According to implementations of the disclosed subject matter, a mailserver record for the domain may be queried against the white lists andblack lists 104. The mail server record for the domain, which may be anMX record, may be queried against information sources regarding negativeassociations for the domain, such as spam databases, to determinewhether the mail server record is on a Domain Name System Block List, isassociated with a spam trap, and to ascertain other information commonlyavailable the domain's email rating. The mail server record for thedomain may be directed to a different domain, IP address range, or otherenvironment that differs from the domain itself. The informationobtained about the mail server record may differ from informationobtained about the domain in step 102. For example, the ESP may, in step102, query the domain against white lists and black lists. In step 103,the ESP may obtain a mail server record for the domain. For example, themail server record for ‘domainone.com’ may be directed to‘domainone.com.s7b1fsmtp.com’, indicating that the mail server recordfor ‘domainone.com’ is associated with a third party domain ‘fsmtp.com’.In step 104, the ESP may review the domain ‘fsmtp.com’ and the subdomain‘domainone.com.s7b1.fsmtp.com’ against the white lists and black lists,for example, to determine if ‘fsmtp.com’ is on a black list or a whitelist.

According to implementations of the disclosed subject matter, a webpageassociated with a domain may be retrieved at step 105. The ESP mayretrieve an A or CNAME record associated with the ‘WWW’ DNS record forthe domain. The ESP may then download a webpage, if one exists, from alocation in the A or CNAME record. The webpage may be retrieved usingsuitable tools, such as, for example, a web browser, wget, curl, orother HTML extraction utilities. The webpage may be stored by the ESPfor later review, for example, in a database, file server, filerepository, cloud storage service, or any other file or informationserving infrastructure.

According to one implementation of the disclosed subject matter, thewebpage associated with a domain may be compared against a white list ofdomains and associated webpages at step 106. The webpage for the domain,retrieved in step 105, may be parsed and compared against websitesassociated with high-ranking whitelisted websites on publicly availableor internally maintained spam lists. The ESP may review the webpage byparsing the webpage for commonly used words, known trademarks owned bywhitelisted domains, images or scripts hosted by a third party or one ormore whitelisted domains.

For example, a client may include in a recipient list an email addressof ‘user@domainonemail.com’, and request that the ESP send an email,such as a marketing email, to the email address. The ESP may wish toverify and obtain information about the domain ‘domainonemail.com’,because the ESP may have not previously sent an email to an emailaddress associated with that domain. The ESP may obtain registrationrecords, such as DNS entries, for ‘domainonemail.com’, which may includea ‘WWW’ entry. The ESP may determine that a website associated with‘www.domainonemail.com’ redirects to ‘mail.domainone.com’. The ESP maythen be able to determine that ‘www.domainonemail.com’ is associatedwith a company DomainOne, which may be a well-known provider of internethosted service.

As another example, a client may include in a recipient list an emailaddress of ‘user@fakewebsite.com’ and request that the ESP send anemail, for example, a marketing email, to the email address. The ESP maywish to verify and obtain information about the domain‘fakewebsite.com’, as the ESP may have never sent an email to an emailaddress associated with that domain. The ESP may obtain registrationrecords, such as DNS entries, for ‘fakewebsite.com’, which may include a‘WWW’ entry. The ESP may retrieve webpages from a website associatedwith ‘www.fakewebstie.com’, and compare the webpages to webpages fromwebsites of known high-ranking whitelisted websites. The ESP may find aclose match between the webpages from ‘www.fakewebsite.com’ and thewebpages from ‘www.domainone.com’, as ‘www.fakewebsite.com’ may copy anddownload images from ‘www.domainone.com’. The ESP may determine whetherthe website at ‘www.fakewebsite.com’ is associated with‘www.domainone.com’ by reviewing information about the ownership of adomain, for example, WHOIS information, about the domain‘fakewebsite.com’. In the event that the ownership information for thedomain ‘fakewebsite.com’ is not the same or similar to the ownershipinformation for ‘domainone.com’, the ESP may determine that‘fakewebsite.com’ is a malicious domain.

According to implementations of the disclosed subject matter, potentialmisspellings for a domain may be identified using a white list of knowndomains at step 107. The domain may be compared to a white list of knowndomains to determine whether the domain may be misspelled or may beassociated with a fraudulent website. The ESP may compare the domainname to the known domain names using, for example, adding or deletingletters from the domain name, adding or removing phrase to the domainname, replacing words or phrases in the domain name with their commonlymisspelled word or phrase counterparts, or using any other suitablecomparison techniques. For example, a client may request that the ESPsend an email to the email address ‘user@dommainone.com’. The domain‘dommainone.com’ may be compared against a white list of known domains,and may be determined to closely resemble the white listed domaindomainone.com′.

According to one implementation of the disclosed subject matter, astrategy for sending an email may be determined at step 108. Informationobtained by the ESP about the domain at steps 101, 102, 103, 104, 105,106, and 107 may be used to determine a strategy for sending emails tothe domain. The ESP may elect to send email to the domain through asecondary sending infrastructure that is separate and distinct from anetwork perspective from the ESP's primary sending infrastructure. TheESP may determine that the domain is risky, malicious, malformed, orimproperly configured to receive email, and may send a subset of emailsthat the client requested be sent to email addresses associated with thedomain using the secondary sending infrastructure that may beindependent and distinct from the ESP's primary sending infrastructure.This may enable the ESP to directly test the email receivingcapabilities of the domain without negatively impacting the email senderrating of the ESP's primary sending infrastructure. After the ESPdetermines that the subset of emails sent to the domain arrivedsuccessfully, the ESP may send the remaining emails requested to be sentto the email addresses associated with the domain.

The ESP may elect to send all email destined for domain through asecondary sending infrastructure that is separate and distinct from anetwork perspective from the ESP's primary sending infrastructure for atrial period of any suitable length. The ESP may gather more informationabout the domain without negatively impacting the email sender rating ofits primary sending infrastructure. In the event that no issues arisefrom sending emails to the domain during the trial period, the ESP maythen elect to send emails destined for the domain through its primarysending infrastructure.

The ESP may determine an email sending strategy that may request asecond opt-in from recipients at the email addresses associated with thedomain. The ESP may send an email to each email address associated withthe domain. The emails may request that the recipient click a linkwithin the email, respond to the email, or otherwise interact with theemail in a manner that indicates the recipient wants to receive emailsfrom client.

A client may request that the ESP send emails, for example, marketingemails, to one or more email addresses associated a domain to which theESP has not previously sent email. The ESP may determine an emailsending strategy that sends an email to each email address with a linkasking the recipient of the email to verify that they wish to receiveemails from the client. In the event that the recipient clicks on thelink, the ESP may determine that the recipient has opted-in to receivingemails from the client, and thereafter, emails sent to the recipient'semail address may be sent using the ESP's primary sendinginfrastructure.

The ESP may determine an email sending strategy that sends emails to allemail addresses associated with the domain using the ESP's primarysending infrastructure. The ESP may also use any other suitable emailsending strategy.

The ESP may not collect information about the domain for each of thesteps 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, and 107. The ESP may determine an emailsending strategy as in step 108 after any of the steps 102, 103, 104,105, 106, and 107 if the ESP determines that enough information aboutthe domain has been gathered such that an email sending strategy may bedetermined. For example, the ESP may obtain DNS records for a domain instep 103 and determine that the domain has no associated MX record. TheESP may decide not to send email to recipients with email addressesassociated with the domain because any emails sent to such recipientswill not actually arrive at any mailbox.

According to an implementation of the disclosed subject matter, an emailmay be sent at step 109. The ESP may send email in accordance with theemail sending strategy determined in step 108. The ESP may send emailsfrom the ESP's primary sending infrastructure and alternative orsecondary email infrastructures, may send a subset of emails to test thedomain, may send the totality of emails, or may send emails in any othersuitable manner in accordance with the email sending strategy.

According to an implementation of the disclosed subject matter, a changein the behavior of the recipient of an email may be observed at step110. The ESP may track activity associated with emails sent torecipients by the ESP. Activity may include, for example, openingemails, clicking links within emails, subsequently purchasing productsform the links opened within emails, clicking advertisements withinemails, and any other type of email tracking activity. The ESP mayestablish a baseline for each domain that may be associated withexpected recipient behavior for email tracking activity. In the eventthat the ESP determines that there has been a change in recipientbehavior from one or more established baselines or expected set ofrecipient activities associated with a domain, the ESP may elect to testthe domain through, for example, the steps 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106,and 107, to verify that the domain is properly configured or gather moreinformation about the domain before sending more email to recipientsassociated with the domain.

FIG. 2 shows an example system for evaluating domains according to animplementation of the disclosed subject matter. A system 200 may includea primary sending infrastructure 201, a secondary sending infrastructure202, a user device 204, an ESP server 205, a database 206, and acomputer network 203. Only one user device 204 is depicted in FIG. 2,although the system 200 may have more than one user device 204 operatingat the same time.

The ESP server 205 may be configured to identify a domain forverification and information gathering purposes, to build electronicmessages, establish electronic messages, and send electronic messages,such as emails, or other communications to the user device 204 throughthe computer network 203. The ESP server 205 may access the database 206to evaluate a domain and determine an email sending strategy. The ESPserver 205 may perform any or all the steps 101, 102, 103, 104, 105,106, 107, 108, 109, and 110.

The user device 204 may be configured to provide input or receive outputto and from and the ESP server 205 in order to carry out one or more ofthe steps 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, and 110. The ESPserver 205 may include one or more server computers, computing devices,or other such computing systems. The ESP server 205 may include anysuitable software, hardware, and componentry, such as, for example,microprocessors, memory systems, input/output devices, devicecontrollers and display systems. The ESP server 205 may be a singleserver, or may be number of servers or other computing deviseinterconnected by suitable hardware and software systems and whichcollectively can perform any suitable functions of the ESP server 205,such as, for example, the steps 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108,109, and 110.

The database 206 may store registration records, such as DNS recordinformation, webpages retrieved and evaluated, white lists and blacklists, and any other information retrieved, obtained, or generated bythe ESP server, for example, in accordance with any of the steps thesteps 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, and 110. The database206 may be associated with the ESP server 205. The database 206 mayreside on the ESP server 205, or may reside on a server or computingdevice remote from the ESP server 205, provided that the remote serverof computing device is capable of bi-directional data transfer with theESP server 205. A remote server or computing device on which thedatabase 206 resides may be electronically connected to the ESP server205 and may be capable of continuous bi-directional data transfer withthe ESP server 205.

The database 206 may be a single database, or may include a number ofdatabases connected by any suitable software and hardware and capable ofperforming the functions of the database 206. The database 206 mayinclude a relational database architecture or other suitable databasearchitecture. The database 206 may retrievably store information,documents, and email tracking activity that is communicated to thedatabase 206 from the user device 204, the ESP server 205, or throughthe computer network 203.

The primary sending infrastructure 201 and the secondary sendinginfrastructure 202 may include a communication sending infrastructurefor relaying or sending electronic communications, such as, for example,emails, to the user device 204. The primary sending infrastructure 201and the secondary sending infrastructure 202 may be, for example, serversystems including various sizes of clusters of servers, with anysuitable server architecture. The primary sending infrastructure 201 andthe secondary sending infrastructure 202 may be in communication withcommunication sending relays to send electronic communications to theuser device 204. The communication sending infrastructure may include,for example, servers running SMTP daemons, SMS gateways, MMS gateways,SMSC, MMSC, and other communication sending and relaying infrastructure.The primary sending infrastructure 201 and the secondary sendinginfrastructure 202 may reside in a computer network distinct from oneanother such that the IP address associated with primary sendinginfrastructure 201 is distinct from the IP address associated with thesecondary sending infrastructure 202.

Each component in the system 200 may communicate with otherelectronically coupled components through the network 203. The network203 may include, for example, the Internet, a WAN, LAN, private network,public network, or any other type of computer network. The communicationbetween any component and another computing device may be bidirectional.The user device 204 may include any type of device capable of receivinga communication from an enterprise or retrieving a communication storedwithin a service provider where a communication is sent, such as, forexample, a smartphone, PDA, tablet, gaming system, personal computer,laptop, and cell phone.

Implementations of the presently disclosed subject matter may beimplemented and used with various communication platforms, which may besimilar in architecture to email platforms, such as, for example, SMSand MMS communication platforms, group messaging applications, andsocial networking systems.

Implementations of the presently disclosed subject matter may beimplemented in and used with a variety of component and networkarchitectures. FIG. 3 is an example computer 20 suitable forimplementing implementations of the presently disclosed subject matter.As discussed in further detail herein, the computer 20 may be a singlecomputer in a network of multiple computers. As shown in FIG. 3,computer may communicate a central component 30 (e.g., server, cloudserver, database, etc.). The central component 30 may communicate withone or more other computers such as the second computer 31. According tothis implementation, the information obtained to and/or from a centralcomponent 30 may be isolated for each computer such that computer 20 maynot share information with computer 31. Alternatively or in addition,computer 20 may communicate directly with the second computer 31.

The computer (e.g., user computer, enterprise computer, etc.) 20includes a bus 21 which interconnects major components of the computer20, such as a central processor 24, a memory 27 (typically RAM, butwhich may also include ROM, flash RAM, or the like), an input/outputcontroller 28, a user display 22, such as a display or touch screen viaa display adapter, a user input interface 26, which may include one ormore controllers and associated user input or devices such as akeyboard, mouse, WiFi/cellular radios, touchscreen, microphone/speakersand the like, and may be closely coupled to the I/O controller 28, fixedstorage 23, such as a hard drive, flash storage, Fibre Channel network,SAN device, SCSI device, and the like, and a removable media component25 operative to control and receive an optical disk, flash drive, andthe like.

The bus 21 enable data communication between the central processor 24and the memory 27, which may include read-only memory (ROM) or flashmemory (neither shown), and random access memory (RAM) (not shown), aspreviously noted. The RAM can include the main memory into which theoperating system and application programs are loaded. The ROM or flashmemory can contain, among other code, the Basic Input-Output system(BIOS) which controls basic hardware operation such as the interactionwith peripheral components. Applications resident with the computer 20can be stored on and accessed via a computer readable medium, such as ahard disk drive (e.g., fixed storage 23), an optical drive, floppy disk,or other storage medium 25.

The fixed storage 23 may be integral with the computer 20 or may beseparate and accessed through other interfaces. A network interface 29may provide a direct connection to a remote server via a telephone link,to the Internet via an internet service provider (ISP), or a directconnection to a remote server via a direct network link to the Internetvia a POP (point of presence) or other technique. The network interface29 may provide such connection using wireless techniques, includingdigital cellular telephone connection, Cellular Digital Packet Data(CDPD) connection, digital satellite data connection or the like. Forexample, the network interface 29 may enable the computer to communicatewith other computers via one or more local, wide-area, or othernetworks, as shown in FIG. 4.

Many other devices or components (not shown) may be connected in asimilar manner (e.g., document scanners, digital cameras and so on).Conversely, all of the components shown in FIG. 3 need not be present topractice the present disclosure. The components can be interconnected indifferent ways from that shown. The operation of a computer such as thatshown in FIG. 3 is readily known in the art and is not discussed indetail in this application. Code to implement the present disclosure canbe stored in computer-readable storage media such as one or more of thememory 27, fixed storage 23, removable media 25, or on a remote storagelocation.

FIG. 4 shows an example network arrangement according to animplementation of the disclosed subject matter. One or more clients 10,11, such as computers, microcomputers, local computers, smart phones,tablet computing devices, enterprise devices, and the like may connectto other devices via one or more networks 7 (e.g., a power distributionnetwork). The network may be a local network, wide-area network, theInternet, or any other suitable communication network or networks, andmay be implemented on any suitable platform including wired and/orwireless networks. The clients may communicate with one or more servers13 and/or databases 15. The devices may be directly accessible by theclients 10, 11, or one or more other devices may provide intermediaryaccess such as where a server 13 provides access to resources stored ina database 15. The clients 10, 11 also may access remote platforms 17 orservices provided by remote platforms 17 such as cloud computingarrangements and services. The remote platform 17 may include one ormore servers 13 and/or databases 15. Information from or about a firstclient may be isolated to that client such that, for example,information about client 10 may not be shared with client 11.Alternatively, information from or about a first client may beanonymized prior to being shared with another client. For example, anyclient identification information about client 10 may be removed frominformation provided to client 11 that pertains to client 10.

More generally, various implementations of the presently disclosedsubject matter may include or be implemented in the form ofcomputer-implemented processes and apparatuses for practicing thoseprocesses. Implementations also may be implemented in the form of acomputer program product having computer program code containinginstructions implemented in non-transitory and/or tangible media, suchas floppy diskettes, CD-ROMs, hard drives, USB (universal serial bus)drives, or any other machine readable storage medium, wherein, when thecomputer program code is loaded into and executed by a computer, thecomputer becomes an apparatus for practicing implementations of thedisclosed subject matter. Implementations also may be implemented in theform of computer program code, for example, whether stored in a storagemedium, loaded into and/or executed by a computer, or transmitted oversome transmission medium, such as over electrical wiring or cabling,through fiber optics, or via electromagnetic radiation, wherein when thecomputer program code is loaded into and executed by a computer, thecomputer becomes an apparatus for practicing implementations of thedisclosed subject matter. When implemented on a general-purposemicroprocessor, the computer program code segments configure themicroprocessor to create specific logic circuits. In someconfigurations, a set of computer-readable instructions stored on acomputer-readable storage medium may be implemented by a general-purposeprocessor, which may transform the general-purpose processor or a devicecontaining the general-purpose processor into a special-purpose deviceconfigured to implement or carry out the instructions. Implementationsmay be implemented using hardware that may include a processor, such asa general purpose microprocessor and/or an Application SpecificIntegrated Circuit (ASIC) that implements all or part of the techniquesaccording to implementations of the disclosed subject matter in hardwareand/or firmware. The processor may be coupled to memory, such as RAM,ROM, flash memory, a hard disk or any other device capable of storingelectronic information. The memory may store instructions adapted to beexecuted by the processor to perform the techniques according toimplementations of the disclosed subject matter.

The foregoing description, for purpose of explanation, has beendescribed with reference to specific implementations. However, theillustrative discussions above are not intended to be exhaustive or tolimit implementations of the disclosed subject matter to the preciseforms disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in viewof the above teachings. The implementations were chosen and described inorder to explain the principles of implementations of the disclosedsubject matter and their practical applications, to thereby enableothers skilled in the art to utilize those implementations as well asvarious implementations with various modifications as may be suited tothe particular use contemplated.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method forevaluating domains to send emails while maintaining sender reputationcomprising: determining that a domain for a set of email addresses is atleast one of a malformed domain, a malicious domain, and improperlyconfigured to receive email; sending an email to each email address of asubset of email addresses using a secondary sending infrastructuredistinct from a primary sending infrastructure for a trial periodwithout negatively impacting an email sender rating of the primarysending infrastructure, the secondary sending infrastructure associatedwith an IP address that is distinct from an IP address associated withthe primary sending infrastructure, wherein the subset of emailaddresses are a subset of the set of email addresses that are bothassociated with the domain for the set of email addresses and to whichan email is to be sent; and responsive to determining that each of theemails sent to an email address of the subset of email addresses arrivedsuccessfully at the email address to which each of the emails sent to anemail address of the subset of email addresses was sent during the trialperiod, sending an email to each email address in the set of emailaddresses that was not in the subset of email addresses.
 2. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the sending of an emailto each email address in the set of email addresses that was not in thesubset of email addresses uses either the primary sending infrastructureor the secondary sending infrastructure.
 3. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 1, further comprising observing changes in behavior ofrecipients of electronic communications.
 4. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 3, wherein a change is observed when a behavior ofrecipients with email addresses associated with a domain for a trackingactivity varies from a baseline for the tracking activity establishedbased on recipients with email addresses associated with the domain forthe set of email addresses.
 5. The computer-implemented method of claim4, wherein the tracking activity is opening emails, clicking linkswithin emails, subsequently purchasing products from links opened withinemails, or clicking advertisements within emails.
 6. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining that adomain for a set of email addresses is at least one of a malformeddomain, a malicious domain, and improperly configured to receive emailfurther comprises determining that the domain for the set of emailaddresses is on at least one black list.
 7. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 1, wherein determining that a domain for a set of emailaddresses is at least one of a malformed domain, a malicious domain, andimproperly configured to receive email further comprises determiningthat a mail server record for the domain for the set of email addressesis on at least one black list.
 8. A system for evaluating domains tosend emails while maintaining sender reputation, the system comprising:a primary sending infrastructure; a secondary sending infrastructure; ahost server comprising a hardware processor and a memory, the hostserver electronically coupled to the primary sending infrastructure andthe secondary sending infrastructure, the hardware processor of the hostserver configured to: determine that a domain for a set of emailaddresses is at least one of a malformed domain, a malicious domain, andimproperly configured to receive email, send an email to each emailaddress of a subset of email addresses using the secondary sendinginfrastructure distinct from a primary sending infrastructure for atrial period without negatively impacting an email sender rating of theprimary sending infrastructure, the secondary sending infrastructureassociated with an IP address that is distinct from an IP addressassociated with the primary sending infrastructure, wherein the subsetof email addresses are a subset of the set of email addresses that areboth associated with the domain for the set of email addresses and towhich an email is to be sent, and responsive to determining that each ofthe emails sent to an email address of the subset of email addressesarrived successfully at the email address to which each of the emailssent to an email address of the subset of email addresses was sentduring the trial period, send an email to each email address in the setof email addresses that was not in the subset of email addresses.
 9. Thesystem of claim 8, wherein the hardware processor of the host server isfurther configured to send an email to each email address in the set ofemail addresses that was not in the subset of email addresses usingeither the primary sending infrastructure or the secondary sendinginfrastructure.
 10. The system of claim 8, further wherein the hardwareprocessor of the host server is further configured to observe changes inbehavior of recipients of electronic communications.
 11. The system ofclaim 10, wherein a change is observed when a behavior of recipientswith email addresses associated with a domain for a tracking activityvaries from a baseline for the tracking activity established based onrecipients with email addresses associated with the domain for the setof email addresses.
 12. The system of claim 11 wherein the trackingactivity is opening emails, clicking links within emails, subsequentlypurchasing products from links opened within emails, or clickingadvertisements within emails.
 13. The system of claim 8, wherein thehardware processor of the host server is further configured to determinea domain for a set of email addresses is at least one of a malformeddomain, a malicious domain, and improperly configured to receive emailby determining that the domain for the set of email addresses is on atleast one black list.
 14. The system of claim 8, wherein the hardwareprocessor of the host server is further configured to determine a domainfor a set of email addresses is at least one of a malformed domain, amalicious domain, and improperly configured to receive email furthercomprises by determining that a mail server record for the domain forthe set of email addresses is on at least one black list.
 15. A systemcomprising: one or more computers and one or more storage devicesstoring instructions which are operable, when executed by the one ormore computers, to cause the one or more computers to perform operationscomprising: determining that a domain for a set of email addresses is atleast one of a malformed domain, a malicious domain, and improperlyconfigured to receive email; sending an email to each email address of asubset of email addresses using a secondary sending infrastructuredistinct from a primary sending infrastructure for a trial periodwithout negatively impacting an email sender rating of the primarysending infrastructure, the secondary sending infrastructure associatedwith an IP address that is distinct from an IP address associated withthe primary sending infrastructure, wherein the subset of emailaddresses are a subset of the set of email addresses that are bothassociated with the domain for the set of email addresses and to whichan email is to be sent; and responsive to determining that each of theemails sent to an email address of the subset of email addresses arrivedsuccessfully at the email address to which each of the emails sent to anemail address of the subset of email addresses was sent during the trialperiod, sending an email to each email address in the set of emailaddresses that was not in the subset of email addresses.
 16. The systemof claim 15, wherein the sending of an email to each email address inthe set of email addresses that was not in the subset of email addressesuses either the primary sending infrastructure or the secondary sendinginfrastructure.
 17. The system of claim 15, wherein the instructionsfurther cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprisingobserving changes in behavior of recipients of electroniccommunications.
 18. The system of claim 17, wherein a change is observedwhen a behavior of recipients with email addresses associated with adomain for a tracking activity varies from a baseline for the trackingactivity established based on recipients with email addresses associatedwith the domain for the set of email addresses.
 19. The system of claim18, wherein the tracking activity is opening emails, clicking linkswithin emails, subsequently purchasing products from links opened withinemails, or clicking advertisements within emails.
 20. The system ofclaim 15, wherein the instructions that cause the one or more computersto perform operations comprising determining that a domain for a set ofemail addresses is at least one of a malformed domain, a maliciousdomain, and improperly configured to receive email instructions furthercause the one or more computers to perform operations comprisingdetermining that the domain for the set of email addresses is on atleast one black list.
 21. The system of claim 15, wherein theinstructions that cause the one or more computers to perform operationscomprising determining that a domain for a set of email addresses is atleast one of a malformed domain, a malicious domain, and improperlyconfigured to receive email further cause the one or more computers toperform operations comprising determining that a mail server record forthe domain for the set of email addresses is on at least one black list.